Blair calls for the 'healing of Africa'

In today's Informer:
* Tony Blair calls for the 'healing of Africa' at earth summit
* Jonathan Woodgate and Lee Bowyer will both face Portugal on Saturday
* David Fickling on why Australia's relations with its smaller pacific neighbours have reached new lows.

* In Education: Will Woodward meets pupils and teachers starting their compulsory citizenship lessons and visits the Newsroom, the Guardian's new archive and visitor centre * How children will ever learn to trust adults again is the question thousands of parents and teachers are asking after the Soham tragedy. The answer, says Dea Birkett, lies not in reassuring but in listening * Three years since Tony Blair pledged that 50% of young people should enter higher education, Sheldon Rothblatt opens a series on the state of universities worldwide

AUSTRALIA DISPATCH

Australia's relations with its Pacific neighbours have often been rocky, but recently they have reached new lows, writes David Fickling.

Greg Urwin is an inoffensive character. A former Australian high commissioner and diplomat in Fiji, Samoa and Vanuatu, the worst that could be said about him is that he is a personal friend of Australia's prime minister, John Howard.

But when Mr Howard suggested last month that he should be appointed to head the Pacific Forum of 16 nations, the result was a wave of protest across the region.

That was partly due to the fact that a Pacific islander has traditionally headed the forum, consisting of 14 small island nations alongside Australia and New Zealand.

But Motarilavoa Hilda Lini, the sister of Vanuatu's founding prime minister and director of the Pacific Concerns Resource Centre in Suva, believes there is more to it than that. "Australia at the moment is being viewed very negatively by the Pacific islanders," she said. "They are behaving in a selfish manner and a colonial manner, and people are questioning their reasons for making this nomination now."

Candidates in European elections often produce posters featuring large pictures of themselves. But Pierre Guiraud, a candidate in a French local government election, has gone a step further. M Guiraud, who is a 41-year-old carpenter, appears naked on his election poster under the slogan: "I won't hide anything from you."

The modest back-lit shot effectively conceals the most private parts of M Guiraud's anatomy, Voila.fr reports. Hitherto he was better known for having presented the tax office with a giant cheque made of wood. "Increasing minister's wages and freezing the minimum wage is far more indecent than posing nude," he declares, condemning the "inaction" of politicians and the scourge of high taxation.